English poet and novelist.

Sassoon was known for his powerful anti-war poetry and fictionalised autobiographies. After studying at Cambridge, he spent eight years living the life of a country gentleman, hunting and writing poetry. Published privately, his early poetry made very little impact.

On the outbreak of the First World War Sassoon enlisted in the military and eventually became an officer in the Royal Fusiliers. He was posted to France where he involved himself in recklessly brave deeds against the Germans. However, as the war dragged on Sassoon experienced a sense of total disgust with the conflict. While his earlier war poetry, such as The Old Huntsman, depicts war as a noble enterprise, his later war poems, including Counter-Attack, reveal its shocking brutality and pointlessness.

While being treated for shell shock in 1917 Sassoon met and befriended the poet Wilfred Owen whose poetry he later championed.

After the war, Sassoon wrote three fictional autobiographies Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (1928), Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930) and Sherston's Progress (1936). He later wrote three volumes of autobiography.